Emergency Care By the Bay
Emergency Care Conference, November 2017
By Roneet Lev, MD
“They kept bringing out more and more chairs”, that’s how I knew the conference was a hit, said Dr. Leslie Mukau, director at El Centro Medical Center and moderator of the ED director panel.
The conference, Emergency Care By the Bay, was historic in that it was a partnership between the San Diego County Medical Society, California Emergency Nurses Association (Cal ENA), and The Doctor’s Company (TDC). “This may be the first of it’s kind conference”, said Susan Smith, Cal ENA member and one of the conference organizers. Did doctors and nurses mind being together at a conference? “Not an issue”, said Dr. Jordan Cohen, director of Alvarado’s emergency department, “we are use to working in teams together.”
The location showed off the lovely San Diego bay front from the Kona Kai resort hotel. The agenda was packed and fast paced, similar to a shift in the emergency department. It opened up with the state of the emergency department by Dr. Roneet Lev, the state of nursing by David Samuelson, RN, president of California ENA, and a vision to create the future of Emergency Medicine by BJ Bartleson, VP of nursing and clinical services, California Hospital Association.
The biggest problem with the conference was the triage decisions. Burn Management or the ED director panel? Care of the Transgender patient or Infectious disease? Pediatric updates or responding to critical assaults? Marijuana Madness or Hot Topics in EMS, DEA, Tele Psychiatry, Ambulance transfer of care, and nation wide case management sharing?
San Diego emergency medicine residents from the 3 programs at Kaiser, UCSD, and Kaiser were given a complimentary invitation and a special lunch lesson by the father of emergency medicine, Dr. Peter Rosen.
Emergency providers are always interested in disasters. In the past the conference invited speakers from the Boston Marathon, Orlando Pulse Club Shooting, Missouri Tornado. This year we learned from Dr. Pablo Tovar, medical director at Ben Taub Emergency Department in Houston and what is was like for staff to live in the emergency department for a week. For the final speaker, instead of people skipping out early, we again had to bring in more chairs. Professor Kobi Peleg, trauma director for the state of Israel and world renowned disaster expert gave a presentation that pushed our traditional thoughts of disaster preparedness with his experience with terror in Israel and disasters around the world.
Dr. Eric McDonald, public health medical director of epidemiology and immunization services at San Diego County said, “We are so fortunate to have such leadership in our medical community, creating critical bridges between public health and emergency medicine, nurses and doctors, medicine and law enforcement, and multiple stakeholders across various specialties in attacking real problems, well done!!!
